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(I’m not a Latin expert but, hell, my game didn’t just die! So there.. Post-Partum, after birth, I like it.)

Oh, hello, didn’t see you there! I’m the creator of Poisoned Wizards (working title) and this was my first entry into Ludum Dare. My first take was that it was a lot of fun and a great incentive to make something, which is the hardest thing to do sometimes. Setting myself to work within the limitation of 48 hours and organizing the time while working out stuff happening in “real life” was a neat experience while working on my passion instead of the regular work.

The 48 hours went by faster than expected, and because it was my first time entering I was a bit nervous that I would mess up the timing or the whole organization of my time.Here in Portugal the Compo started at 2 AM so I decided to wait for the theme, work only on some ideas and design for the game and sleep on them until the next day.

When I saw the theme “10 seconds” the first idea that came to me was something on the line of using time altering mechanics to make a sort of puzzle game around only having 10 seconds to complete it. This was scrapped because it would require me to work out some pretty complicated mechanics for the base game and probably make a bunch of levels by hand.
I didn’t feel this first design was flowing as I would like either, so I tried to think of something more on the lines of a mechanics focused game, with replayability and more extensible from a features point of view.
This second design, one of a strategy game with some bits inspired from the combat of the Heroes of Might and Magic games but on a faster loop and with a scope in line with the Ludum Dare, came to mind then.I think I also preferred this design because as a programmer/game designer it’s easier for me to work on game mechanics and systems than on the artsy part of games, so a more mechanics focused game would probably work better for me.

And so Poisoned Wizards was born, a game about wizards summoning creatures in 10 seconds to destroy each other’s base before running off to the bathroom. The full design included many features that I knew were going to be mostly cut, like, for example, besides summoning being able to cast spells, mainly buffs and debuffs for the summons, but also damaging spells that would hit the first thing in their path.

I initially was planning on having a bunch of different creatures, like archers, clerics to heal your summons, and strong beasts like dragons that would be really strong and possibly fly over ground units, but would eat a lot of the very limited casting time you have at the start. These ideas were mostly left on the side when I had to dedicate most of Sunday to visiting parents and friends, and only had time to work on refining some details and make up some sort of interface and restart mechanic.

The Good..
On the first 24 hours I was able to hit my goal of having a working game cycle, including the different phases, which was great to realise the design.

The game’s replayability and the simple scoring worked better than I was expecting to be honest, I believe the simply random positioning of units for the AI provides a fun if somewhat random opponent.

THE AWESOME MOUNTAIN BACKDROP!!!!!

The Bad..
There are some collision bugs that look a bit messed up because of the underlying scripts for behavior.

The interface is too plain, but I’d have to admit the arts are not my strong suit.

The Ugly..
That grass..
Those basic Unity models..
All the amazing model animation..

The Undone..
Not fully realizing the plan to add more than one type of unit to the game.

Was planing on adding more of a setup to the game and the setting, by having a short dialogue between the wizards before the casting time and when they run off.

Was also planning to have a more fully realized AI, or possibly a way to do local multiplayer.

There’s no sound. I wanted to have added sound to the units strikes and summoning but it was pushed in favor of some polishing on Sunday.

And thus we have Poisoned Wizards. Even with all the undone and hastily done features I like what I accomplished and think it could be used to build upon and make something fun to play.

Please check out the game and leave some ratings and comments if you feel like it. I’m grateful for any feedback and welcome any chat or exchange of ideas so feel free to send some my way!

This entry was posted
on Wednesday, September 4th, 2013 at 3:39 am and is filed under LD #27.
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